Most Indian access controlled highways with toll gates suffer from the common problem of long queues. The slow movement of traffic and the process of giving change take a lot of time. Often, motorists lose the overall time they save by using such highways. A minister from the Haryana state cabinet, Vipul Goyal, was caught in one such traffic jam, for over 15 minutes. What he did next earned him praise from a lot of road users. And it was caught on video.

Minister comes to the rescue

Vipul Goyal, a member of legislative assembly and a minister from the BJP party, Haryana, was stuck in a similar jam yesterday. The incident happened at the Badarpur tollgate where the queue extended to a certain distance, which is a common problem for the commuters travelling on this stretch. Seeing the long jam, the minister alighted from his official car, which was being escorted by state police vehicles and ordered every control room to keep the boom barrier open.

Generally, ministers and VIPs get a special lane to pass through such toll gates, where the convoy does not have to pay the toll and gets a free access. The video shows the conversation between the minister and the tollgate employee where the employee is explaining about some fault in the system. It seems that the minister was stuck in the jam too and he can be heard saying that he was stuck in the jam for 15 minutes.

The minister ordered all the toll gates to be opened to make the traffic flow smooth again while he stood there watching all the vehicles pass by. It is not known for how long the tollgate allowed the free movement of the vehicles but it sure is a humble gesture from the minister to the fellow road users. This is also a reason why ministers and their ilk need to experience the same traffic conditions as common folks, to understand and solve the problems that common people face.

India has deployed Fast Tag lanes in the country and all new cars that are bought in India have to get mandatory fast tags. Such tags have NFC chips that can communicate with the toll gates. The government has made it mandatory to have a special lane for fast tag users who do take much less time to pay the toll. These tags are pre-paid and the money is automatically deducted from the account, which provides a fast and smooth movement.

There have been many rumours in the past that say that the vehicular movements should be free if the queue length exceeds a certain length. However, government agencies such as MORTH (Ministry for Road Transport and Highways) and NHAI (National Highway Authority of India) have confirmed that there is no such provision in the rule book to provide free access to the cars.

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